Clueless

I was sitting on the porch of my dwelling, which I like to call a dock. It is a dock because just in front of it flows the river that we call road. That's the route I have to take to sail myself away from my world to that on the outside. 

But this day I was just watching the ships sail by. Whizzing by in their shiny chrome, like a bee trapped inside a room. Where are they heading? What are they running from? What do they desire? It's such a strange place out there. Nobody knows what they want. Do I know what I want? No. It's a mystery. Perhaps I want to be rich, perhaps I want to be happy, or perhaps I just want to grow old. I don't know. Nobody knows. 

They say man, like all living beings, follows the natural order of things. The order, kept intact by laws of science and in case of man, social norms,  and the need to survive and propagate, is what keeps this world ticking. Perhaps it is true. Yet what appears to differentiate us from other fortunate beings is that we don't know what we want. We have no clue. Not at all!

In the beginning...

I bought a new aquarium a couple of months back. Back then, I was in a desperate need of a hobby. I wanted something that cheers me up, and I got this aquarium.

After a  week, I bought a few plants, and after another week, I started buying fish for the tank. Let me introduce you to the characters.

1. Akhen, Amun and Aten: These belong to the first batch of the fish that I bought. Akhen and Aten are both dead now. Amun is the only survivor.  Amun is a strange orange fish. When it first arrived, it was the smallest of the three. It has grown in size and is now the biggest in the tank. The white Akhen lasted just a week. Aten, survived, and was the dominant fish before it died.

2. Bali, Sugriv and Hanuman: Bali and Sugiv are the white Mollies. I bought them with Hanuman, the bottom feeder, after Akhen died. Bali and Sugriv survive to these days, but Hanuman simply vanished. It used to hide sometimes, and I was used to not seeing it. Then one day it stopped reappearing. I pulled up the pyramid, but it was still not there. I could not find it in the filter, or down the floor. It has become the part of the void.

3. Bagira, Bhalu and Kaa: These were the fish that I bought after the disappearing act of Hanuman. The black Bagira was the biggest, and has been an aggressive one. It chases the other fellows. However, it is second in the hierarchy to Amun. Bhalu is a spotted red-and-black molly that has forgotten to grow. She is the smallest of the bunch, but is doing alright. Kaa is definitely my favorite. It is a snaky little fellow that eats algae, and moves around the walls searching for the food. I love it when it dances quickly behind the glasses when it decides to get some break from its all-day entrepreneurship of feeding on algae. It is peaceful.  It bothers nobody; nobody bothers it. Yet it is only because Kaa feeds on a different niche.